the.com/memoir
the only genre where forgetting the details is technically part of the craft
means A first-person account of one's own life or a specific slice of it, written from personal memory rather than strict documentary record.
from From French mémoire, 'memory' or 'record,' which descends from Latin memoria, 'memory, remembrance.' The same root gives us 'memory,' 'memorial,' and 'commemorate' — all built on the Latin verb memorare, 'to call to mind.' English borrowed mémoire in the late 1500s, at first meaning a note or record kept as a reminder; the sense of a written life-account grew from there.
- root word
- from French memoire, meaning memory itself
- truth optional
- courts treat memoirs as fact, suing for inaccuracy
- oldest known
- Caesar wrote his own war memoirs as propaganda
- vs autobiography
- covers a theme, not your whole life
night by elie wiesel — holocaust survivor's account of auschwitz and buchenwald, 1960
becoming by michelle obama — former first lady's path from chicago to the white house, 2018